Illinois will, of course, have her share, and perhaps the larger share too, in the benefits of the canal; but the instance of the sugar clearly shows that the _benefits_ of an improvement are by no means confined to the particular locality of the improvement itself. “The just conclusion from all this is, that if the nation refuse to make improvements of the more general kind, because their benefits may be somewhat local, a State may for the same reason, refuse to make an improvement of a local kind, because its benefits may be somewhat general. A State may well say to the Nation: ‘If you will do nothing for me, I will do nothing for you.’ Thus it is seen, that if this argument of ‘inequality’ is sufficient anywhere, it is sufficient everywhere, and puts an end to improvements altogether. I hope and believe, that if both the Nation and the States would, in faith, in their respective spheres, do what they could in the way of improvements, what of inequality might be produced in one place might be compensated in another and that the sum of the whole might not be very unequal. But suppose, after all, there should be some degree of inequality: inequality is certainly never to be embraced for its own sake; but is every good thing to be discarded which may be inseparably connected with some degree of it? If so, we must discard all government. This Capitol is built at the public expense, for the public benefit; but does any one doubt that it is of some peculiar local advantage to the property holders and business people of Washington? Shall we remove it for this reason? And if so, where shall we set it down, and be free from the difficulty? To make sure of our object shall we locate it nowhere, and leave Congress hereafter to hold its sessions as the loafer lodged, ‘in spots about?’ I make no special allusion to the present President when I say, there are few stronger cases in this world of ‘burden to the many, and benefit to the few’--of ‘inequality’--than the Presidency itself is by some thought to be. An honest laborer digs coal at about seventy cents a day, while the President digs abstractions at about seventy dollars a day. The _coal_ is clearly worth more than the _abstractions_, and yet what a monstrous inequality in the prices! Does the President, for this reason, propose to abolish the Presidency? He _does_ not, and he _ought_ not. The true rule, in determining to embrace or reject any thing, is not whether it have _any_ evil in it, but whether it have more of evil than of good. There are few things _wholly_ evil or _wholly_ good; almost every thing, especially of government policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded. On this principle the President, his friends, and the world generally, act on most subjects. Why not apply it, then, upon this question? Why,